It might be argued that, for much of his lifetime as a director, Wes Craven's horror film work faced a crisis of legitimacy among critics, perhaps highlighted by the fact that some of his best-known projects were banned and censored in various countries. In Germany, this “crisis of legitimacy” was especially evident when it came to Craven's first feature-length film, The Last House on the Left (hereafter: LHOTL, 1972). In the late 1960s and 1970s (West) Germany had been quick to follow trends from countries on the liberal forefront of the portrayal of sexual content in films, especially Denmark and Sweden. In the absence of legal pornography, the country even began producing its own brand of sexually charged films, either billed as lurid sex education or soft-core comedy films, modelled on Russ Meyer's work. However, similar laissez-faire treatment was not extended to filmic displays of graphic violence reaching German shores (indeed, the country only became known for provocative horror films at the tail-end of the 1980s, with Jörg Buttgereit's Nekromantik [1987]).Craven's LHOTL can be seen among the canonical independent American horror films of the 1970s. Others almost certainly include The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974); Snuff (Michael and Roberta Findlay, 1976); The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977); Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), and Dawn of the Dead (George Romero, 1978). Invariably, these benchmark genre films had problems with various censorship boards. In the following chapter, I will approach the subject of LHOTL and German censorship by first providing a quick overview of the country's certification practices in spirit and in letter, and especially as regards the modern horror film. Then, I will look at LHOTL's initial (non)release in Germany. It will emerge from this discussion that, far from following a liberal doctrine on artistic freedom, for many years German censors followed restrictive practices already established in the infancy of film around 1900 and then fully emerging during the Nazi era. Furthermore, the place of Wes Craven's LHOTL in the history of horror will be discussed with an eye on US society at the time of its release.